a tile: לבנה [Strong's H3843], levainah generally denotes a brick, and Palladius informs us that the bricks in common use among the ancients were "two feet long, one foot broad, and four inches thick;" and on such a surface the whole siege might be easily pourtrayed. Perhaps, however, it may here denote a flat tile, like a Roman brick, which were commonly used for tablets, as we learn from Pliny, Hist. Nat. 1. vii. c. 57.

three: This number of years will take us back from the year in which Judea was finally desolated by Nebuzar-adan, bc 584, to the establishment of idolatry in Israel by Jeroboam, bc 975. "Beginning from Kg1 12:33. Ending Jer 52:30.

forty days: This represented the forty years during which gross idolatry prevailed in Judah, from the reformation of Josiah, bc 624, to the same final desolation of the land. Some think that the period of 390 days also predicts the duration of the siege of the Babylonians (Eze 4:9), deducting from it five months and twenty-nine days, when the besiegers went to meet the Egyptians (Kg2 25:1-4; Jer 37:5); and that forty days may have been employed in desolating the temple and city. "Beginning from Kg2 23:3, Kg2 23:23. Ending Jer 52:30."

millet: Dochan in Arabic, dokhn the holcus dochna of Forskal, is a kind of millet, of considerable use as a food; the cultivation of which is described by Browne.

fitches: or, spelt, Kussemim is doubtless ζεα, or spelt, as Aquila and Symmachus render here; and so LXX and Theodotion, ολυρα. In times of scarcity it is customary to mix several kinds of coarser grains with the finer, to make it last the longer.

cow's dung: Dried cow-dung is a common fuel in the East, as it is in many parts of England, to the present day; but the prophet was ordered to prepare his bread with human ordure, to shew the extreme degree of wretchedness to which the besieged should be exposed, as they would be obliged literally to use it, from not being able to leave the city to collect other fuel. Eze 4:15

eat: The prophet was allowed each day only twenty shekels weight, or about ten ounces, of the coarse food he had prepared, and the sixth part of a hin, scarcely a pint and a half, of water; all of which was intended to shew that they should be obliged to eat the meanest and coarsest food, and that by weight, and their water by measure. Eze 4:10,Eze 4:11, Eze 12:18, Eze 12:19; Psa 60:3; Lam 1:11, Lam 4:9, Lam 4:10, Lam 5:9